


Season for Blooming

by RaspberryDawn



Category: Smosh
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Illness, Declarations Of Love, Falling In Love, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hanahaki Disease, Jealousy, M/M, Major Illness, One Shot, Pining, Post-Break Up, Roommates, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaspberryDawn/pseuds/RaspberryDawn
Summary: Damien has never had an easy time breathing – but this, this is different. He can tell by the way his coughing fits keep happening after he feels jealous and envious of his best friend dating his crush, and also the way his lungs keep forcing out flower petals…-‘Hanahaki disease’ - flowers growing in the lungs of those who have unrequited love.





	Season for Blooming

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Smosh Valentine's Day exchange that was put on on tumblr. The person I wrote for suggested something with this whole Hanahaki disease thing, which seemed like a super interesting concept and so this was interesting to write!  
> Again - the concept of hanahaki disease is flowers that begin to grow in the chest cavity of those who feel unrequited love. it obviously can be fatal, but it can be removed with surgery (often leading to the emotions being removed). So... yep! here it is.

There was something Damien felt when they first met that just made his heart flutter.

He had sometimes offhandedly paid attention as Shayne talked about knowing Noah, given that they had been coworkers for a while now while he and the blond were roommates. They had never really met though, there was no reason to, and he felt just a bit of regret at that.

After all, once Damien met him and was around him, there was something utterly entrancing about him. The younger man was funny, talented, had a great smile and laugh — and he didn’t know much about personal space, meaning he often caused inadvertent spikes of anxiety to flare up. The fluttering in his heart was accompanied often by feeling his muscles tense and general confusion.

It was infuriating and exciting to feel enamored over someone. If he’d been introduced to Noah earlier, through the connection he and Shayne had, it would have superseded his feelings about dating coworkers. The logical part of his mind told himself that he was just going through an infatuation, nothing drastically important. It would disappear, it would clear up. 

He had a girlfriend, anyway. He didn’t want anything with someone else, much less someone he’d just met and who was a different gender than what he normally felt himself attracted to.

Life was sometimes strange.

Even stranger was what was still to happen, as his employment stretched on and his personal relationship wore thin. Before the entire fabric of his romantic relationship unraveled, Shayne offered him refuge in moving back in with him — being roommates again, to help him weather the storm. 

_There was just one important thing he had to know when moving in. Noah would be over, possibly quite a bit, because they had begun to date, actually._

_‘It sounds weird, but it just works.’  He was warned. ‘If it makes you uncomfortable, we’d understand.’_

What was he supposed to say? He was shocked. From seeing them interact at work, there had been absolutely no indicators of something… non-professional going on. Yet they were together, and already a ‘we’ at that.

When his relationship did finally end, he threw himself in to his work. It was great to have gone with everyone to do the summer games in Nevada, because even though it was for work it seemed like a bit of a divorce from reality. That lasted just long enough. 

When they came back, he didn’t feel aimless for long. He’d agree to being a body anywhere they needed an extra one, and in time started up a new show with Shayne where they worked alongside one another playing games on a couch. 

The problems started when he realized the infatuation he had felt after meeting Noah had only had a bandaid put on it the entire time. He had been doing this or that, to distract himself from life in general, but when he was back down on earth with everyone else it was clear how he had been avoiding reality.

It started when he saw them both one night, still in the living room with the lights off. The only illumination was the television and the movie they were watching, but he felt his chest tighten when he saw how they were wrapped around one another. They looked content and it seemed so natural. He’d only been out to grab a drink from the kitchen, so he made his way back to his own bedroom and shut the door. 

Damien thought maybe the pain in his lungs was his off-and-on again bronchitis, something that he always had a difficult time getting rid of. He set his bottle of water at his bedside and sat on the edge of the bed, soon finding himself coughing in to his hand so hard it seemed to scare both of his cats from beside him.

The coughing only got worse, leading him to brace one hand against his headboard as he doubled over. It felt like there was something coming up from his lungs, something that he had to work hard to dislodge, and by the time he accomplished coughing it up he was huddled into his own lap, wheezing. 

When he opened his eyes, there were bright spots and flashes of light across his vision. It disappeared with enough blinking, and he noticed the white flower petals on the floor. There were only a few, spread out, and were a type he didn’t recognize off hand — _such a classic look though, with a delicate dip in the middle, flared edges and a softly pointed tip_ , he’d have to identify it later. 

Every bit of self-improvement he had been working on he felt immediately die at that moment. The whole time he had ignored the feelings growing in his chest, the foliage taking bloom and threatening to one day make it hard to breath.

He had known he had a pre-disposition to the disease, but like the naive romantic he was he felt he never would take so long to not share his emotions with anyone else. The idea of having something unrequited (much less because it was forbidden, since it was someone his best friend was with) had always eluded him.

There was loud knocking on his door, followed by Shayne’s concerned voice.

“Are you okay, man? That sounded violent.”

He pushed himself a bit further up the bed, enough so he could turn around and take comfort in half-laying down.

“Yeah, I’ll live.”

The brunet croaked back, his voice shot. He bit down on his own lip, closing his eyes again to spare them the pain of any light.

“Let me know if you need anything…”

Shayne had been such a great best friend. He did so much for him, he would probably even offer Damien one of his kidneys (or, perhaps, a disease-free lung?), but it was clear he couldn’t wish a rift between them because of this.

It was a shame then that it was all he could think would happen.

From then on, it started to snowball. About once a week, he could find himself with a fistful of gardenia petals. There were countless pages online dedicated to documenting the language of flowers, and plenty more from those who had once suffered the same disease and their theories on how it all tied together.

Gardenias were difficult to grow in the beginning, but for a great reward. They could mean purity, they could mean a secret love, all things that he cursed to himself in his head.

Now that he knew he needed to stop thinking about Noah, it was impossible to actually do so. Every time Noah was near him, he wished that the teen would go back to acting like when they first met —a bit reckless and unknowing about his need for personal space. Noah, however, was respectful and thoughtful, even outwardly vocalizing that he knew he shouldn’t touch Damien.

Damien would watch him and Shayne with such a great sadness that just gripped his being. It was inevitable that Noah would hang out with them, but Damien tried to avoid them due to disliking the feeling of being a third wheel. But, sometimes…

It wasn’t his fault. He was so, so tired that day. They all were. The three of them were just collapsed on the couch, and for once, Noah wasn’t intertwined with Shayne, but he sat in the middle between him and Damien. His head was lulled back on his couch, his eyes looking just above the bottom rim of his glasses at the television. 

He felt so naturally relaxed, so warm and tired, that he wasn’t thinking clearly. He didn’t imagine it could be a problem. His arm was hanging on the top edge of the couch, and he had gently let his fingertips graze the multi-colored dyed hair. He ended up looking at Noah, his eyes heavy and wanting to close, and he trailed his hand down, his fingers brushing through his hair and against his chin to his jaw. 

All Noah did had flickered his gaze over, just as Damien rested his thumb on a small dark freckle to the side of his lips. 

It was quite evident he was staring at them, and he was brazenly imagining just leaning over and…

…and he snapped back, pulling his hand away quickly, slamming it down on his own leg. He cleared his throat loudly, gathering everyone’s attention, before he announced he’d be going to bed.

The next day, well, the next day was one of the worst of his life. He didn’t see Shayne until the evening, when they both were home from work (which they had traveled to, separately) and it was late. Shayne came home and sat at the table next to where Damien was already sitting, and he could just feel how heavy the air was.

But before Shayne would say anything, he wanted to control the situation. He leaned over, grabbed Shayne’s forearm, leaned a bit close.

“You love him?”

The answer had been in the affirmative, cautious yet willing to bank on it. They had sat in silence, for a while at least, before Damien ended up spilling a lot of emotions to him. He used all the adjectives that he could — he was confused, he was apologetic, he was unsure, he was sorry. Shayne had mainly listened intently, and when it came for him to speak instead the brunet just left.

In his locked room that night, he coughed up petals that were rimmed in a deep, rich red color. He was terrified at first to think the red could be blood, but he had gotten over his germophobia to inspect and play with one. The red wouldn’t come off, it was a part of it, and though the rest of the petal was white it had a frilled edge, but seemed a bit larger and flatter.

He spent a lot of fruitless time searching if the type of petal could change — most of what he found was poor souls who just repeatedly fell in love, unrequited, with others one after the next.

He had avoided it so far, but he made an appointment with a doctor — good, discreet doctors weren’t too hard to find. They were skilled at even operating on the lungs, ripping out the roots that took place so the owner of said lungs could live.

The feelings he felt served him no purpose, especially if he never could act on them. He couldn’t do that to his best friend, the man who meant more than anything or anyone else in the world to him. Shayne had been there for so much, he was so thankful for him and had no idea what he would do without him. Having the disease cured would remove his emotions, but it would save the relationship he had with Shayne, who meant more.

It was nearly two weeks before he could see this surgeon for her consultation. In that time, the feelings began to crush him. It was starting to impede his breathing daily, and he would feel sick and exhausted from normal activity — to add to the sickness he felt in his stomach about it all. Even though he did his best to stay away from everyone, again, it didn’t make it go away.

They were red striped carnations, a flower that the only meaning he found was ‘I can’t be with you’. 

Some days there would be multiple times he would expel the petals from his lungs. It was sometimes so severe, leaving him with both hands full of the aspirated petals only wet from his saliva. Though, he managed to hold out and wait for the surgeon’s consult. It wouldn’t be too long after then, he knew, and there was always the emergency room if he needed it…

The day of, in the morning he rolled out of bed already coughing. 

For some reason, it was just then that he realized the gardenia petals. They were mixed with the carnation, and it dawned on him in the most terrible fashion that the whole time, the type of flower hadn’t changed. He’d just been choking from both.

When he met the doctor, she felt very skillful, very sympathetic. She was the one to sit him down and show him the x-rays, before he managed to tell her everything about his pesky ‘emotions’. With a clipboard on her lap, she asked if he had ever had the disease before.

It looked to her like one of the most advanced cases she’d ever seen, and he believed her with the graveness of the tone with what she spoke. There had been roots growing for possibly years, and it was amazing not just that it had only recently effected him, but that he was still alive.

She was certain if they had time, she could confirm with more advanced imagery that the first set of roots were pushed into his flesh, and had started to get covered with scar tissue. But there were other roots as well, not connected to the others, a newer growth that spun and twisted around….

His stomach hurt. She wanted to do surgery as soon as possible — the next day. He’d have to let everyone know, including… his roommate, coworkers…

The more he thought about Shayne on the drive home, the sicker he felt. It was ‘all in his head’, yet his head controlled the rest of his body, even for things like making him feel nauseous.

He felt like his head had been a bit stupid, too.

Before he drove home he texted Shayne, who promised to come home from work so they could talk.  He held off on telling or declaring anything to anyone else, though, not yet.

When he did arrive home, he found Shayne on the couch. He had a worried look on his face, even as he stared at an open book on his lap. He closed it when he saw Damien come to him though, grimacing as he sat beside him. 

Damien tried to take a few, slow, deep breaths.

“I love you.”

There was absolutely no change of expression on the blond’s face, not yet. He chose to just listen, his mouth closed taut.

“I don’t know for how long I have. And then… then I got a crush on your boyfriend. I didn’t know he was your boyfriend! But… it did start about right when I met him. And I thought I was in love with him, when I was infatuated and in love with you.”

“That’s not what I was expecting. I thought — Noah thought — you liked him.”

That was all that Shayne could murmur for the moment, shaking his head and lowering it. 

“The thing is, I do. I love both of you, but I never loved him until that night I… I just grabbed his face on the couch. Before then, it was a crush, but that night I fell in love with him. I’ve just also always been in love with you.”

It was complicated. Shayne was quiet. He feared there was no way for him to understand, and he balled his fingers into fists on his lap. Damien was even angry with himself, now, for not having realized or noticed it. The love probably took root long ago, where it could hide amongst his usual propensity for respiratory illness where doctors would write every instance off on that. It took a long time for the gardenia roots to grow and the flowers to bloom, but they had done so carefully and bided their time.

Loving even one person could be complicated enough, but he was apparently also envious and open to loving others. Instead of finding beauty in it, he was angry his ribs were being pushed against by flowers.

“Okay.”

Damien frowned, giving Shayne a rather dirty look.

“Could you… maybe articulate on that, a bit?”

“I wanted to talk to you before.” He shifted closer to Damien, who resisted the urge to throw the hand off his shoulder. His heart was beating so rapidly that he was honestly a bit afraid. 

“Noah and I did figure that out, yeah, you didn’t do the best job about hiding it even before you… pretty much confirmed it. When we talked about it, I told him how I used to hope you and I would get together, and how it kinda sucked you wanted him. He actually suggested I ask you if you… wanted both of us. I can’t give you my boyfriend, but thinking instead like it’s some package deal… I could live with that. He could, he suggested it in the first place. But then you had me so worried I hurt you, it didn’t come back up.”

He felt numb, like his hair was on end. He bristled as he flattened his hands from their fists, his mouth open just the slightest.

“So, like a threeway? Is that what you’re suggesting? To some declaration of love where I’m spilling my heart out?”

Suddenly Shayne burst out laughing, though it was clear he was trying to reel himself back and control it. He shook his head and leaned over, wrapping his arm around his person-space loving best friend.

“No, you idiot. Like, a relationship. An invitation to be with the both of us. It can’t hurt to try if you want to…”

Damien felt sheepish, a bit embarrassed he felt he had jumped the gun there. he just took in a deep breath, realizing he had maybe been given the opportunity he needed to tend to the garden of emotions growing inside of him, physically and metaphorically.

“Um… Yeah.”

He turned his head back to Shayne, smiling automatically as he saw the man’s wide smile and intense blue eyes. The wave of emotions that hit him made him feel like he was so close to just tearing up, as he smiled so gratefully and happily along.

So with that, he lunged in to the arm around his shoulder, launching in to a hug with Shayne. He wrapped his arms so tightly around the other man, who was saying he supposed this meant yes, just as Damien took laughed out in agreement and finally took a deep breath.  
  



End file.
